The disturbing truth about the New Orleans witch who stole human bones from a cemetery

In December 2015, a self-styled witch from New Orleans went viral on Tumblr and the wider internet when she offered to steal and sell human bones from a potter's field cemetery for "curse work".

Ender Darling, who first posted about her ongoing graveyard doings on Facebook, freely revealed in a Facebook group that she and other self-proclaimed witches would frequently visit a "poor man's graveyard" after heavy rainfall to take bones that had washed to the surface.

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"This is where I go to find my human bones for curse work and general spells that require bones"

A screenshot of the post quickly made it's way onto Tumblr, and it read:

"Cw: graves, bone hunting(Comment if tere are added warnings needed).......About twenty minutes from my house in New Orleans is what we call the poor man's graveyard. Most grayeyards around here are full of above ground graves because we live in a fish bowl. But there happens to be a graveyard where its all in ground graves. For those of us who are too poor to afford above ground burial.When it rains of course bones wash up, the older the grave the more you find. You can literally walk around and see femurs, teeth, jaws, skull caps, etc etc. This is where I go to find my human bones for curse work and general spells that require bone {I find human bones are easier for work with for me rather than animal bone. I can relate and work with the energy they carry if that makes any sense.)Anyways I wanted to see if I started 'selling' (basically cover shipping to where ever you happen to be} if people would be interested? I know human bones aren't easy to come by and I usually have left overs. I only go once a month, or when it rains here."

Pretty disturbing stuff, right?

Eventually the post caught the eye of the state authorities, who - according to the Advocate - determined from Facebook photos on Darling's profile that the cemetery in question was likely New Orleans' Holt Cemetery.

The Louisiana Attorney General's Office soon after put her house under "periodic surveillance" for six days and subsequently raided.

"When it rains of course bones wash up, the older the grave the more you find. You can literally walk around and see femurs, teeth, jaws, skull caps..."

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Darling has since posted online that she and other residents of the house were flooded with threats, writing: "People were getting really serious about this, and it was all over me picking up bones. It's a very special place to me, but my physical safety is more important.

"I wasn't selling anything," Darling said. "It was, 'You cover how much it takes to ship it.' This is me passing along something I feel nature has given me. I don't want money for this."

The Advocate reports that it's unclear whether Darling will be criminally charged for the stealing of bones as "so far, Darling and the other occupants of the home have received only summonses for marijuana possession", though the post did trigger online outrage.

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